My friend
“in the valley” is beyond frustrated. He has libraries established in his name
at universities and museums yet he struggles to make sense of the life he
lived. How the things he did and the places he went are somehow meaningless
now. I watch him struggle alone, without God to give him peace, joy, strength,
and victory. The dark spirit world that served him all these years provides
nothing now beyond a selfish suffering.

Jesus came to set us free from a life of self. I hope that it is not too late for my friend. Living for God is man's highest goal, privilege, and purpose. In the living and in dying we can have the “power of the heavenly life” to comfort and guide us.

The
following lesson is lengthy; it is necessary to lay a foundation.
I encourage you to read it more than once to fully grasp what Murray is saying.
The excerpt is titled “For Whom and Through Whom are All Things” from Andrew Murray’s classic The Holiest of All:

The apostle might have written: "It became God to make
the Leader of our salvation perfect through suffering." Not without good
reason does he introduce here the character in which God acted in perfecting
the Son as Leader of our salvation. When man sinned and fell from God, he lost
together the two blessed truths in which his relation to God had stood. His
holy allegiance to God, having all things for Him, his blessed dependence on
God, having all things through Him; instead of these came the reign of self,
with its life for self and through self.

It was from this life of self Jesus came to redeem us, to
bring us back to God, to know and honor Him as the God and Father, for whom are
all things and through whom are all things. In doing this he opened again the
only way which could lead to glory. He did it first by showing us in His life,
as Man, how men ought to live for God and through God. And then by delivering
us through His death from the dominion of sin, and winning for us the power of
the heavenly life.

For whom are all things, and through whom are all things. It
was in this character that God perfected Christ through sufferings. It was in
this character that Christ revealed and honored God in His sufferings. It is to
win and bring us to know and love and serve God in this character that Jesus is
Savior.

For whom are all things. Throughout His whole life there is
nothing that Jesus sought to impress more distinctly on His disciples than
this, that He was the Father's messenger and servant; that there was no thought
of doing His own will or seeking His own honor; that He only sought and did
what would be for the Father's pleasure and glory.

He gave us the example of a man on earth living absolutely
and entirely for God in heaven. His life on earth was the exhibition here in
the flesh, the translation into human language, of the divine claim —"All
things for God." His allegiance to God was absolute. He proved to us that
man's destiny and blessedness and everlasting glory are to be found in this:
Living wholly for God.

Through whom are all things. Of this too Christ's life was
the exposition. He was not ashamed continually to say that He could do nothing
of Himself, and that only as the Father showed Him or spoke to Him, could He
work and speak. He counted this His blessedness and His strength— not to be
able to do anything of Himself, but in continual dependence to wait on God and
His working in Him. He knew and taught us that the man who has said in
whole-hearted devotion to God, “All things for God," may confidently say
too, "All things through God."